


.Fi 



H0LL1NGER 

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MILL RUN F3-1543 



SPEECH 



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MR. f ESSEND.EN, OF MAINE, 



I 



ON 



THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE, 



DELIVERED 



IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, DECEMBEK 4, 1856. 



WASHINGTON: 
Printed at the capital city office, 

1856. 



/ 



SPEECH. 



The Senate having under consideration a motion 
to print the President's Message with the ac- 
companying documents 

Mr. FESSENDEN said : 

Mr. Prescient, I have but a few words to 
say. Like other Senators, I may premise by 
remarking that I did not intend to speak even 
the few words which I now propose to submit ; 
but the remarks that have fallen from the 
honorable Senator from South Carolina, [Mr. 
Butler,] followed by those made by the hon- 
orable Senator from Texas, [Mr. Husk,] in- 
duce me to say something by way of defense 
for myself, and those whom I represent. 

The President has sent us a message, cer- 
tainly of a very singular character. 1 believe 
that, in the history of the country, he is the 
first Chief Magistrate of the Union who has 
used his high station for the purpose of assail- 
ing a large portion of his fellow-citizens, the 
most of whom he admits to have been actua- 
ted by good motives. I was disposed, how- 
ever, with my honorable friend from New 
York, [Mr. Seward,] to let that pass ; I had 
some consideration for the position in which 
he finds himself placed. My feelings towards 
him were rather "those of compassion thai of 
a different character. But, sir, I must say 
that, after the attack he has made, and after 
the sort of argument, if it may be dignified 
with the name of argument, which he has 
endeavored to palm upon the country in his 
annual message, iu relation to political affairs, 
we certainly may be excused, I beg leave to 
say to the Senator from Texas, if not for using 
words which are not of a strictly parliament- 
ary character, yet for stating some things in 
reference to the message, from which conclu- 
sions may be drawn quite as little to the credit 
of the Chief Magistrate. 

I hold that upon all occasions we ought to be 
exceedingly careful in relatiou to the language 
we use in addressing each other, or in speak- 
ing of each other, or of any co-ordinate 
branches of the Government ; but if a high 
officer will avail himself of the station in which 
he is placed to assail, and moreover to insult, 
a large portion of the people whom he claims 
to represent — for he asserts that he i« the rep- 
resentative, and the only representative, of the 
whole people — it ill becomes the representa- 
tives in Congress, either of the States or of 
the people, to sit perfectly silent and allow it 
to * "ithout remark, unless they can give 
V reason for doing so. If I had 



kept silent upon this occasion the only reason 
1 should have given is that which I have 
already intimated — that his fallen pusition 
may induce men to pardon very much that 
could not otherwise escape without rebuke. 

Mr. President, the Chief Magistrate, in my 
judgment, has, either by himself or by another, 
— for some say that he is the author of his 
own message, and some pretend to see in it 
the hand of another person, — in this message 
studiously misrepresented facts ; he has sedu- 
ously endeavored to fix upon a very large 
portion of the people of this country accusa- 
tions which he knows to be applicable to but 
few. There are in the free States of the Union, 
as everybody knows who reads the newspapers, 
or who is at all familiar with the history of the 
country, two classes of men who have opposed 
the present Administration, with reference to 
the slavery question. One is a very small 
class, a very powerless class, having no direct 
influence in. the councils of the country, hav- 
ing no very considerable influence upon the 
public opinion of the country, known as 
ultra-Abolitionists ; who profess to have no 
attachment to the Constitution of the United 
States ; who profess, even, that under the 
Constitution there is power to abolish slavery 
in the States, and who avow a willingness to 
exercise that power. It is well understood 
that those men are few ; that tbeir opinions 
are not represented here ; that they have no 
power to be represented in those opinions 
here, in either branch of Congress ; that they 
have in fact almost as little influence upon 
public opinion in the whole North as they 
have upon public opinion in the South. 

There is another class of men — a class which 
has carried eleven States of this Union, and 
would have carried every free State, in my 
judgment, if the votes had been fairly given, 
except California, of which I know nothing — 
a class disclaiming all connection with the 
opinions of that set of men to whom I have 
just alluded, all connection with their princi- 
ples 

Mr. PUGH. Will the Senator allow me to 
ask him a question ? 

Mr. FESSENDEN. Yes sir. 

Mr. P TT GH. I would like the Senator to 
show/^ *ie an authoritative paper, either the 
pla^ ,rm of the Kepublican party, or any- 
tl..ig else, which disclaims connection with 
those gentlemen. I ask him to show me in 
the platform of the Kepublican party any 



section denying the right of Congress to legis- 
late on the subject of shivery in the States. 

Mr. FESSENDEN. Sir, 1 have not spoken 
of party platforms. 

Mr. PUGH. The Senator will understand 
me. /did not interrupt him for the purpose 
of being impertinent. I understood him to 
say that the Republican party has denied its 
connection with the faction which advocates 
the right of Congress to legislate upon the sub- 
ject of slavery in the States, and 1 ask him to 
point me to the place where they have denied 
such connection. 

Mr. FESSENDEN. I was speaking oi 
classes, not of parties. I say there is a large 
class — a class which has carried these elec- 
tions — a party, if you please to call it so, 
which does not agree with, but disavows all 
connection with the sentiments of that small 
portion of the people of whom I have »poken. 
They do not disavow the connection in their 
platform. They are not called upon to say 
in their platform what they do not believe, 
and do not affirm. It is sufficient that the 
platform affirms positively what they mean 
— states their positive opinions and positive 
intentions. It is not necessary, nor is it 
proper, that the platform of a party should 
undertake to deny what it does not hold. But 
I say that in the speeches of all their public 
men, and in all their leading newspapers, they 
have, unquestionably, without any hesitation, 
laid down principles entirely at war with the 
principles assumed by what are called ultra- 
Abolitionists. 

Mr. PUGH. It was stated on the day 
. before yesterday by the Senator from Missis- 
sippi, [Mr. Brown,] and my own recollec- 
; tion corresponds with his, having seen the 
article, that the New York Tribune appealed 
to these men to vote with the Republican 
party, becauso the Republican party in due 
time would take their position. 

Mr. FESSENDEN. I cannot deny that, 



Mr. PUGH. I wish to be fair with the 
Senator. I understood him first to assert 
that the Republican party disavowed its con- 
nection with these other gentlemen. I then 
asked him to show me the place where they 
disavowed it. He said it was not in the plat- 
form, but in the newspapers ; that every 
newspaper disavowed it. I named one which 
did not. 

Mr. FESSENDEN. I said nothing about 
its connection. I said it disavowed those 
principles ; and there is no paper of the Re- 
publican party which has ever advocated the 
doctrines of the ultra- Abolitionists. No Sena- 
tor can cite me to one. If there be such a 
one, it is not an authoritative exponent of Re- 
publican doctrine. 

Mr. BROWN. If the Senator from Maine 
will yield me the floor for a moment, 1 will 
ask him one question. 

Mr. FESSENDEN. With great pleasure. 

Mr. BROWN. The Senator says the news- 
papers of the Republican party have not ad- 
vocated the principles of the ultra-Abolition- 
ists. Does he not know that the ultra-Aboli- 
tion papers have advocated and sustained the 
principles of the Republican party? 

Mr. FESSENDEN. Suppose they have, 
what of it ? 

Mr. BROWN. A great deal of it. It shows 
that sort of affinity between the two parties 
which, it seems to me, on the basis laid down 
by the Senator from IVJaine, ought to be ex- 
ceedingly objectionable to him and the objec- 
tion he ought to manifest. If, he entertains 
principles so close to those of the Abolition 
party that they, feeing they have no chance 
to elect a man of their own, readily fall into 
the support of his party, is it not apparent 
that, whenever they have gained sufficient as- 
cendency in the party, they will control every- 
thing to their own advantage ? Things hav- 
ing a tendency in that direction, we are left to 
conjecture how soon the time will come when 
the Abolition element of his party will be the 



because I do not know that it is not so ; but 

I can say that' although a reader of the New] predominant element. 

York Tribune, I never saw it. Whether it is Mr. FESSENDEN. It is precisely that 

there or not I cannot say. But even if it kind of logic to which I object as altogether 

■were there, it by no means follows that it is a unfair and inconclusive. I ask the honorable 



part of the creed of the Republican party 
hold that no party is responsible for all that 
appears in all the newspapers which support 
its candidates. ' Do you hold that tl e Demo- 
cratic party in the North is responsible for the 
doctrines of the Charleston Standard? 

Mr. PUGH. No. 

Mr. FESSENDEN. Why, then, do you 
hold the Republican paTty at the North re- 
sponsible for the doctrines of the New York 
Tribune, if it made any such announcement ? 



Senator from Mississippi, in reply, does ho 
not well know that the Charleston Standard 
supported the candidates of the Democratic 
pitty? I cite this as a mere example. la 
the Democratic party responsible for it ? Are 
we to understand that the Senator from Missis- 
sippi and all his friends maintain the doc- 
trines of that paper — that they are in favor 
of disunion — hold that disunion would be the 
very best thing that could happen for the 
people of the South, and that a party should 



be formed to accomplish it ? Does he en- 
dorse all those doctrines as the doctrines of the 
party ? 

Mr. BROWN. The Senator speaks of the 
Charleston Standard. I suppose he means 
the Charleston Mercury. 

Mr. FESSENDEN. No, sir ; I mean the 
Charleston Standard. 

Mr. BROWN. It is a paper I never read, 
and I do not know anything about it. 

Mr. FESSENDEN. It has- had a long 
series of articles to the effect which I have 
stated. 

Mr. BROWN. Sentiments reflected by 
particular newspapers are one thing. The 
sentiments reflected by an organized political 
party are altogether a different thing. Now 
I state that the whole Abolition party of the 
North, the Garrison and Gerrit Smith and 
Fred Douglas party — the party known to the 
country as the Abolition party per se, went 
for John C. Fremont for President, and were 
invited to do so b}' the leaders of the Repub- 
lican party. 

Mr. FESSENDEN. I know nothing about 
the invitation, and I do not know whether 
they were invited by the leaders or not. 
That a part of them voted with the Republi- 
can party, and that a part did not, 1 am well 
aware. The Abolition party itself was not 
sunk in the Republican party. That individ- 
uals of that party voted for the Republican 
candidates may be true ; but how does that 
prove that the more than one million of men 
who voted for John C. Fremont are actuated 
by the same principles ? Is a party respon- 
sible for the principles of every man who 
chooses to act with it as a matter of choice ? 
The reasoning is illogical. In my judgment it 
is unfair — I use the word in no offensive 
sense. We do not hold ourselves responsible 
for the private opinions of all who choose to 
vote with us; nor do we hold our fellow-citi- 
zens of the South responsible for the private 
opinions of all men who choose to vote with 
them ; nor for all the opinions expressed in 
the public newspapers of the South, some of 
which are unquestionably offensive to south- 
ern people — quite as offensive to them as to 
us, fir I believe there are as good friends to 
the Union in the South as in the North. 

What I object, to in the message, therefore, 
is this : the President well knew, well under- 
Btood, that there was a wide distinction be- 
tween the small, powerless class of ultra- 
Abolitionists in the free States, and the great 
parly which nominated John C. Fremont 
as acandidate for the Presidency ; and yet, 
throughout this message, he makes no distinc- 
tion between these two parties, but endeavors 



to fasten on the country the idea that they are 
one and the same ; that tha same men who 
sustain the one set of principles sustain the 
other. Not only does he do that, but he en- 
deavors to prove the principles themselves 
identical, although knowing very well that 
there is a wide distinction between the doc- 
trines of those who maintain that slavery 
should not be extended, and of those who 
maintain that this Union should be dissolved, 
or that the rights of the States should be in- 
terfered with in reference to slavery. He 
makes the attempt, and carries it through his 
message, to show that the principles and 
objects themselves are one and the same, and 
endeavors to blind the country to the true 
distinction between them. It maybe unpar- 
liamentary to impute motives to anybody ; 
but he imputes motives to us; he attacks the 
Republican party, and charges it distinctly 
with a design to overthrow the Constitution of 
the United States, and to usurp power. What 
truth is there in this ? Are we going beyond 
the limits of propriety when we reply to the 
President, of the United States, and say: 
" Sir, in that message you attempt and design 
to encourage and extend the feeling that now 
exists between the citizens of the free and 
slave States of this Union." I believe that 
was his motive; and I have as much right 
here in my place to cbarge him with a motive 
improper for him to conceive, and entertain, 
and be guided by, as he has to charge mc 
from his place with being actuated by motives 
of the same character. 

But I do not mean to bestow much time 
upon this message. I did not rise for that 
purpose. 1 rose to defend my section of the 
country, the people whom I represent here, 
the old Democratic State of Maine, in its 
present position, with its twenty-five thousand 
majority for Fremont, from the charge which 
lias been made by the President against it. 
My object was to deny the truth of his state- 
ments — to repel them, so far as I can repel 
them, from my place in the Senate, and all 
charges of the same description, come from 
what quarter they may. I am not to be 
deterred from doing so by any warning given 
by the Senator from Texas, against making 
imputations, when those imputations are called 
for by the message itself. 

The honorable Senator from Texas says he 
deprecates the introduction of the slavery 
question into the Senate. I have no doubt 
that he does. So do I, unless it is necessary. 
But let me ask him, as my honorable friend 
from Ohio inquired, who brought it here?' 
Who brought here, in the first place, the agi- 
tation that has torn this country asunder 



duriucr the present Administration ? Was it the introduction of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, 



not the President of the United States, acting 
in conjunction with those who repealed the 
Missouri compromise line ? Did it exist before 
the Kansas-Nebraska bill was brought into 
the Senate ? Was not the country quiet ? 
Was not the Senate quiet ? Was not the House 
of Representatives quiet? Was there any 
agitation — any disturbance anywhere ? There 
was none. 

Mr. RUSK. Does the Senator desire an 
answer ? 

Mr. FESSENDEN. I shall be happy to 
receive one. 

Mr. RUSK. The Senator certainly cannot 
have forgotten that long before the Nebraska 
bill was thought of there was opposition to 
the fugitive slave law. Petitions for its repeal 
were presented, aed there was a constant agi- 
tation on that text before the Senate and the 
country, and in public newspapers. It was 
used for political capital . N ow it has become 
popular to say that the Kansas-Nebraska bill 
introduced the agitation of slavery. Why, 
sir, it has been going on for upwards of twenty 
years. This was a better text than the fugi- 
tive slave law, and therefore the fugitive slave 
law was abandoned and this taken up. 

Mr. FESSENDEN. Very well ; I under- 
stand all that ; but let me ask the Senator 
again, in my turn, had not all those matters 
been settled by what are called the compro- 
mise acts ? Had not the country been quieted, 
or was it not supposed to have been quieted, 
by the resolutions of the two conventions held 
in Baltimore in 1852, by both of which it was 
resolved that there should be no more agita- 
tion on the subject — that neither party would 
agitate the question as it then stood, and so 
long as it remained in its then existing condi- 
tion? Was not that the conclusion arrived at 
by both the great parties of the country at 
that time ? When the first Congress under 
President Tierce's administration met, was 
there any disturbance from the commence- 
ment of it lip to the time when the Kansas- 
Nebraska bill was introduced into the Senate 
of the United States? No, sir: none at all. 
The country had been quieted ; it had acqui- 
esced, and it was well known to have acqui- 
esced. A very general disposition existed 
everywhere — it was announced here, upon the 
floor of the Senate — that those questions 
should not be mooted again, but the country 
be left to rest in quiet, and form its own con- 
clusions. Was it not so ? I think I shall be 
borne out by ample testimony on that point. 
Mr. ADAMS. I call the attention of the 
Senator to the fact that some States, Vermont 
for instance, had, by their Legislatures, before 



passed laws against the execution of the fugi- 
tive slave law ? 

Mr. FESSENDEN. That may be. Sup- 
pose they did so. I am speaking of agitation 
here, on the floor of the Senate, and in the 
other branch of Congress. 

Mr. JONES, of Tennessee. Will the Sen- 
ator allow me to interrupt him for a moment, 
to give him some information which he seems 
not to have ? 

Mr. FESSENDEN. I am much obliged to 
the Senator. I am always glad to be in- 
structed. 

Mr. JONES, of Tennessee. I hope so. 
The Senator inqured whether there was agi- 
tation here. Two propositions were made in 
the Senate to repeal the fugitive slave law, 
after the passage of the compromise measures 
of 1850, and a vote was taken up^n them in 
the Senate. 

Mr. FESSENDEN. If the Senator had 
attended to me he would have known that I 
was speaking of the first Congress that met 
after the inauguration of President Pierce. I 
say that the platform of the two party conven- 
tions, held in the summer preceding his elec- 
tion, deprecated all further agitation. When 
he delivered his inaugural address he alluded 
to that fact, and claimed that no further agi- 
tation should take place upon that subject in 
the country. Congress met, and nothing was 
said. There was a general disposition to ac- 
quiesce in those measures — to do nothing and 
say nothing so long as matters remained in 
that condition. It was the introduction of 
the Kansas-Nebraska bill which rekindled 
the fires of agitation in Congress and in the 
country. It was his act, because he indorsed 
and sustained it, and used the power of his 
office in order to carry it through. Well, 
sir, it has passed, and we have gone through 
another election. It was hoped, perhaps gen- 
erally, that we should escape from any un- 
necessary agitation on this subject now. But 
what do we find ? On the second day of the 
sesdon comes in a message from the Presi- 
dent, calculated as well as any document in 
the world could be calculated, to effect the 
same object, and stir this Congress again into 
a blaze ; characterized by violent, although 
covert, attacks upon the principles and mo- 
tives of the great majority of the people of the 
free States, of one of which he is an unworthy 
son — insulting to men, many of whom, to say 
the least, are quite as good, quite as wise, and 
as able as himself; a document intended (for 
I give him credit for a reasonable degree of 
sense) to excite agitation, and I believe, upon 
my conscience, iutended to do so for the pur- 



I >se of accomplishing his own individual ob- 
;" jcte in the future ; for 1 can see no other 
reason for the course be has taken. When 
that document comes into the Senate, and 
some gentlemen do not choose to sit silent 
ander its imputations thus thrust upon us, 
gentlemen from the South ask why this eter- 
nal agitation ? Why not keep silent on this 
subject ? Why is it again brought before the 
country, and to the consideration of the Sen- 
ate ? Sir, of what stuff do you suppose we 
are made V If we are disposed to be quiet, 
you call us craven, we are afraid to speak, we 
liave not spirit enoughtoprotect or defend 
ourselves 1 If we speak out, we are agitators, 
and desire to rake open the coals of discord 
throughout this great country. Allow us to 
be either one or the other — either spirited 
enough to answer for ourselves, or else im- 
pute to something else than cowardice our 
disposition to remain quiet when there seems 
to be no particular necessity for speaking. 

Mr. RUSK. Will the Senator allow me to 
interrupt him for a moment? 

Mr. FESSENDEN. Certainly, sir. 

Mr. RUSK. Has he ever heard from me a 
sentiment to justify what he has just said ? 

Mr. FESSENDEN. No, sir. 

Mr. RUSK. Or from any other southern 
Senator ? 

Mr. FESSENDEN. I do not know that I 
have on the floor of the Senate, but I know 
what is said outside of the Senate ; and we 
are judged outside of the Senate as well as in 
it. To be sure, I am not disposed frequently 
to pay great attention to that, unless I am 
compelled to do so in self-defense. But there 
are occasions when we cannot help noticing 
these matters. We are forced into debate, as 
well as you. I have no disposition certainly 
(and I think, if gentlemen of the Senate will 
j^idge me with calmness, they will concede 
that I have shown no undue disposition) to 
agitate these matters here, I have never 
spoken upon these subjects unless on oeca- 
sfons wheu I certainly might be excused in 
doing so, by the necessities of my position, 
and the principles I hold and mean to main- 
tain. Yet I deem it hardly right that, when 
we are forced iuto these positions, and 
obliged to defend ourselves by the men whom 
you sustain, and who speak for you and for 
you alone, and never for the section of coun- 
try from which I come, we should At least 
have liberty to speak for it ourselves, without 
being accused of any reasonable want of 
courtesy or respect to the powers that be. 

Of the same character is this message with 
regard to affairs in Kansas, and the origin and 
progress of the difficulties there. Look at the 



message calmly. The President assumes that 
the people of this country have, by the recent 
elections, settled certain general principles — 
all very correct principles — such as non-in- 
terference with slavery in the States, the 
equal rights of the States, and of the citizens 
of the States. It has been well said, that no- 
body here ever disputed them ; nobody pre- 
tends to dispute anything of the kind. Yet 
he goes on immediately to speak of the doc- 
trines of the Republican party as affirming the 
right of Congerss to legislate for the Territo- 
ries, and as contravening those well-settled 
principles which nobody disputes. Every one 
can very well see that the conclusion does not 
follow from the premises ; that the questions 
are as perfectly distinct from each other as 
white is from black, or light from darkness. 
They have no similarity, no connection. 
Southern men may argue, and do argue, that 
the consequences will be the same. It is not 
for me to say — I do not wish to say in this 
connection — whether they will be so or not. 
But the questions themselves are widely 
different ; and still, throughout his message, 
the President studiously attempts to convey 
the idea, that when the Republican party in 
the North have undertaken to say that slave- 
ry ought not to be extended over territory 
now free, they have been contending for the 
right to interfere with slavery in the States of 
the Union, and to produce an inequality in 
the rights of the States, and of the citizens of 
the States. That is the only fair and reason- 
able inference to be drawn from his argu- 
ment. Any one can see that the whole argu- 
ment is false — I do not undertake to say 
that he is false — the Senator from Texas will 
mark me well — but I say the agument is 
false. The conclusion does not, and cannot 
follow from the premises. The questions are 
totally distinct from each other. He avails 
himself of his position to send forth to the 
country the impression that the people of the 
United States, in deciding this presidential 
election against the Republican party, have 
settled against that party a right claimed by 
them to interfere with the institution of slave- 
ry in the States, and have rebuked a desire 
upon their part to produce an inequality be- 
tween the free States and the slave States of the 
Union, Is there any such thing in the creed 
of the Republic an party ? Not at all. It can 
be found nowhere — was advocated nowhere — 
by any individual or any press of the Repub- 
lican party. The President has taken pain: 
to say, that the people also rebuked the id 
of a geographical party. My honora 
friend from South Carolina — I hope he>will 
excuse me for calling him so ; I have n</right 




f^fttyl 



8 



to address him otherwise than as the honora- 
ble Senator — has elaborated the idea. 

Mr. BUTLER.. I assure you, sir, I have 
always been upon friendly relations with you. 

Mr. FESSENDEN. I know of none other 
between us ; but still it is not my habit to 
claim any relations between myself and other 
gentlemen than such as I feel, from associa- 
tion, that I am entitled to. Did the President 
mean, in speaking of geographical parties, a 
party that nominated its candidates for Presi- 
dent and Vice President from one section of 
the Union alone ? Is there any man who 
really believes that the nomination of the 
Republican candidates for President and Vice 
President from the free States, was designed 
or intended as an affirmation that no gentle- 
man from the slave States of the Union ought 
to be nominated for those offices ? Not at all. 

Mr. BUTLER. The gentleman is present- 
ing the case fairly, but I ask him to say with 
equal candor whether, if, at the time this 
election was going on, a slaveholder had been 
a candidate, any portion of what he calls the 
free-State people would have voted for him ? 

Mr. FESSENDEN. For my single self I 
can say that, if a slaveholder could have been 
found, of eminence in the country, who had 
come forward and stood with us, and avowed, 
as I almost understood the Senator from 
South Carolina to avow, that he was npposed 
to the further extension of slavery over free 
territory 

Mr. BUTLER. I hope that will be put 
right. I said that I was in what we lawyers 
call a state of indifference on the subject. If 
slavery went to the Territories, be it so ; but 
if it did not go there I would not quarrel about 

Mr. FESSENDEN. Indifference would hot 
have answered our purpose. The Senator 
would not have satisfied us. [Laughter.] 

Mr. BUTLER. I said that you wanted to 
push it off, and that I did not want to push it 
on, but let it go or not, as the people inter- 
ested might determine. 

Mr. FESSENDEN. We understand each 
other. What I mean to say for myself is, 
that if a slaveholder had been presented as a 
candidate for the Presidency who avowed, 
and was ready to maintain, the sentiments of 
the Republican party, of opposition to the 
extension of slavery over free territory, I would 
have voted for him just as soon, and with as 
»uch pleasure, a3 for any man of the free 
St<tes, he being otherwise unobjectionable. 
It VN-uud have been no objection to me ; it 
wouluhave been no objection, I venture to 
sayj to l .he great Republican pa'rty in the free 
States. The objection is not to siaveholders, 



as such. If I could possibly believe such a 
thing of gentlemen of character and manli- 
ness, I might sometimes be tempted to suppose 
that there Was a settled determination to make 
the people of the South believe a falsehood. 
We have never maintained such doctrines as 
have been imputed to us. We have never 
maintained the doctrine that we had a right 
to interfere, or desired to interfere, with the 
institution of slavery in the States. We have' 
never had any desire to prevent the elevation 
of southern men to office. We have had no 
desire to engross to ourselves the offices and 
the emoluments of office in this country. No 
such desire has existed, and gentlemen know 
the fact, and understand it well. That was not 
the difficulty. In the convention at which the 
Republican candidates were nominated, was 
any name presented from the slave States ? 
Not one. For my part, I should have been 
very willing to find one who entertained, and 
was ready to uphold, what I believe to be 
correct political opinions, and to support him 
for the Presidency, either then or at any future 
time. 

But sir, this is a false issue which the Sen- 
ator from South Carolina makes upon us. It 
is not the issue which the President desired to 
present ; and, allow me to say, that I think 
it is of too slight a character to engage the 
attention of the people of this country. The 
people of the North have not been very nar- 
row in the matter of supporting candidate* 
for office. I hope the Senator will excuse me 
for mentioning South Carolina again, [Mr. 
Butler. Certainly.} But if I were to select 
a State in this Union which has exhibited 
itself in a narrow light on that subject, since 
the formation of this Government, it is that 
same State of South Carolina. If the Senator 
will take this book [Hickey's Constitution] 
which lies on the desk, and look over it, hie 
will see that about half the time, since the' 
formation of the Government, South Carolina 
has refused to vote for the regularly-nomina- 
ted candidates of either party, but has .taken 
both its candidates for President and Vice 
President from the slave States, most gene- : 
rally selecting one of its own citizens for o»e 
office, whether he had been nominated or not. 
The record shows this fact. If the Senator 
will examine it — it lies before him — he can 
satisfy himself in a very few moments as to 
the truth of my statement. Then I say — arid" 
I say it with all respect — the charge of narro* 
and sectional views against us comes witfe 
rather an ill grace from the honorable Senafiof 
from South Carolina — because the Republican 
party of the North once, and for the first time, 
when it could do no otherwise — when no can- 



9 



didate from the southern States maintaining 
the principles of that party presented himself, 
or was presented by his friends, and when 
that party must, of necessity, nominate men 
who would maintaiu its principles — while 
South Carolina herself has set so ill an exam- 
ple on that point, from the foundation of the 
Government. No, sir, that is not the ques- 
tion. The question which the President wished 
to present is a very different one. He did not 
dare, out oC respect to himself, to rely on the 
mere circumstance that both candidates had 
been taken from the North, because the his- 
tory of the country would have shown that 
there was no foundation for the charge of sec- 
tionalism in that alone. The Senator from 
Texas saw this when, in connection wich the 
speech made by the Senator from South Car- 
olina, he introduced the phrase, " nominating 
sectional candidates upon a sectional issue." 
To be sure, it is the issue alone that can make 
a party geographical. It is the issue, not the 
location of the candidates, to which the Presi- 
dent refers as affecting our party with a geo- 
graphical character. 

Sir, you had an issue as sectional in the 
last campaign as we had. You contended on 
your side lor the right to carry slavery, as 
you contend now, under the Constitution, into 
the Territories of the United States, whether 
free before or not. We repelled it ; we fought 
it ; we denied it ; we endeavored to prevent 
it. We nominated candidates whose opinions 
were similar to our own. What else should- 
we have done ? Should we go into the camp 
of the enemy and nominate a man to carry 
out our principles who did not agree wiih us? 
By no means. You could come into Jye froe 
States and find a candidate whom you relied 
on to carry out your views, and I suppose he 
will do so, although, as has been well said, 
you did not dare, or you did not think it 
wise — " dare" is not a proper word, I sup- 
pose, to be used on these occasions — to take 
one of the great champions of your cause, 
aud place him before the peop'e as your can- 
didate. It was the issue, then, that made the 
pitrty sectional. Was there not as well a 
geographical candidate at the South also ? 
Did -the fact that you could find at the North 
a candidate for President deprive the issue of 
its sectional character; or did it make your 
party any the less a geographical party? We 
invited votes from all sections of this country. 
We should have been happy to have found 
tiiem in the slave States if they had chosen 
to give them to us. It is the last thing we 
desired to elect a President by the votes of the 
free States alone ; but if compelled to it, on 
an issue so vital to our own interests, so im- 



portant to us, is it to be thrown in our face, 
by the President of the United States, that 
we formed a geographical party; and not only 
that, but formed a geographical party with a 
design to overthrow the Government of the 
United States, or dissolve the Union? I re- 
peat, that when the President made that 
charge covertly in the message which he has 
sent to CoiJgress, he made a charge which had 
no foundation in fact, and is derogatory to the 
true character and honor of the people who 
compose that great party. 

A word more upon that issue. The honor- 
able Senator from Virginia [Mr. Mason] has 
placed, in his speech, the real issue before the 
people in its true character and in plain 
words. I am glad he has done so; and I 
must be allowed to say, wHh my friend from 
Ohio, that if that issue had been presented to 
the people of the free States, and avowed by 
those who supported the same candidates 
whom you supported, and who were success- 
ful, I do not believe there is a free State in 
this Union in which the Democratic party 
would have left a trace of its existence. In 
my State it was said, over and over again, by 
the leading men who advocated the election 
of Mr. Buchanan, that there was no difference 
between the two parties with reference to the 
extension of slavery over free territory. They 
claimed to be as strong and as firu on that 
subject, and in the desire to make Kansas a 
free State, as did the Republicans o" the State 
of Maine. So it was universally, as far as I 
know anything about it, in the free States. 
Gentlemen need not Matter themselves, there- 
fore, that that issue has been presented and 
decided in the free States. If we did so much 
without it; if we did so much with, and in op- 
position to, the acts and principles of this Ad- 
ministration alone ; if what was done, what 
was said, and what was admitted, could carry 
the old Democratic State of Maine by a ma- 
jority of more than twenty-five thousand 
votes, and the Democratic State of Michigan, 
represented here in part by the distinguished 
Senator near me, [Mr. Cass,] by nearly twen- 
ty thousand votes, what would have hap- 
pened in those two States if the sentiment 
which has been stated and advocated by the 
Senator from Virginia had been openly advo- 
cated before the people there? Sir, these 
would have been hardly a vestige left of 
what is called the Democratic party in either 
of those States, or in any other free St 
this Union. 

What is that doctrine ? The Senator 
Virginia claims that the Constitution 
nizes the existence of slavery as an Existing 
institution. Grant it; so it does 




10 



plication. He claims that it concedes to it cer- 
tain political power. I grant that also ; it 
provides for and gives it political power. He 
claims that to he a contract. 1 grant that 
also, and a contract to he maintained. Sir, I 
repudiate tbo idea of any intention on the 
part of the Republican party to interfere in 
any shape with that contract, or with any of 
the legitimate consequences of that oontract 
— any of those advantages to which the slave 
States are entitled in consequence of that con 
tract. But, sir, when it is said that a neces 
sary inference from this is the right to expand 
that institution, to spread it over territory 
where it does not exist, and to increase its po 
litical power thus, we take issue with him; he 
finds no such thing in the Constitution. 

Mr. MA SOX. The Senator I 1 -lieve un- 
derstands me, if I correctly a x .iehend the 
language in which he has convex 1 the idea. 
1 said this, that as a necessary inik -ence from 
the recognition, the protection, ard the ascrip- 
tion to it of political power, what followed ? 
It should be left to its just and legitimate sus- 
ceptibilities of expansion. What is the mean- 
ing of this? That those who hold slaves 
should be allowed to carry them into the Ter- 
ritories, the common property of the whole 
country. Wbal is the language of the party 
for which the honorable Senator from Matre 
is now speaking ? That in the organic law 
creating government in the Territories there 
shall be a prohibition against the introduction 
of slavery. That is the tenet of the party, I 
helieve. 

Mr. FESSENDEN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MASON. Then if Congress pass a 
law prohibiting the introduction of slaves, 
there is denied to the institution what I claim 
to be its just susceptibility of expansion. 
Now, what was the issue presented iafcthe last 
canvass in the State so ably represented by 
the honorable Senator on this floor, or any- 
where else, I know not ; but I do know what 
was the issue on this subject which was pre- 
sented in the political platform adopted at 
Cincinnati by the Democratic party. That 
issue was the doctrine of the Kansas-Ne- 
braska bill. What was that ? The terri- 
torial government was so organized there as 
to admit citizens of all the States, whether 
free or slave, to take their property into the 
Territories ; and when they organized them- 
selves, or were organized under the law, into 
a legislative body, then to determine for them- 
selves whether this institution should exist 
amongst them or not. The specific difference 
is, that under the Kansas law citizens from 
the slave States might go into the Territory 
•nth their property ; citizens from free States 



might go there holding no snch property, 
and, when they got there and met in common 
council as a legislative body, they should de- 
termine whether the institution should pre- 
vail ; whereas the party which the honorable 
Senator is now representing here declares 
that, in the organic law creating the govern- 
ment in the Territory, there shall be a pro- 
hibition in limine, that no slaves shall go 
there. That was the issue presented by the 
platform adopted at Cincinnati. What col- 
lateral issues may have been presented in dif- 
ferent States by their papers and orators, I 
know not. 

Mr. FESSENDEN. I so understand it ; 
but what I was speaking of was, that the 
precise proposition now contended for by the 
Senator, from Virginia was presented nowhere 
in that form, or substantially like it. Cer- 
tainly, in the free States, it was not said, and 
was not claimed, that a portion of the consti- 
tutional rights of those who hold slaves is 
the right of expansion over free territory out- 
side of State limits. If the Senator had said 
they had a right to the natural expansion of 
politic .1 power within the States, arising from 
those p-o visions, as for instance, from the in- 
crease of the number of slaves, I certainly 
should agree with him — there is no disputing 
that ; but when he claims, as part of the con- 
tract, by necessary implication, that the} have 
a right to such expansion as might arise from 
transporting those slaves into free territory, 
and thus establishing political institutions of. 
the same character, I say that is no part of 
the contract. When the Constitution was 
formed, that was a concession to the slave 
power, the slave interest. If it was intended 
that they should have necessarily a right, 
without the consent of Congress, or contrary 
to the laws of Congress, to spread the institu- 
tion uncontrolled over free territory, and thus 
form new States and acquire new power, in 
my judgment the Constitution in that form, 
would never have been adopted. As my hon- 
orable i iend from Ohio has said, the cotem- 
poraneous exposition of the Constitution by 
those who made it shows the contrary. So 
much political power was granted: it was 
granted to the States where the institution ex- 
isted, so long as thev chese to keep it in opera- 
tion. It was not assumed that it might ne- 
cessarily be extended over free territory — free 
■ rom the control of Congress. It is part of 
our creed that Congress ought, in all cases, to 
provide against the extension of the institu- 
tion of slavery over the free Territories of the 
United States. We claim that there is no 
right on the part of the slave States to carry 
it there, We argue it here, as my friend. 



11 ■' 



it is observable that people of the North who 
<HO into slave States are very apt to become as 
enamored with the intitution as those born 
and bred there. 

Mr. BUTLER. And like negroes just a3 
well. 

Mr. FESSENDEN. I flare say, and per- 
haps a little more. Very likely they may 
make worse masters, as a general rule, than 
those born and bred in the same community 
with the slaves. It would be reasonable to 
suppose so. 

Mr. BUTLER. I will here pay a just 
tribute to one northern man. He is, 1 believe, 
one of the best planters I ever knew, and he 
is the strictest governor. I think it is mercy 
to govern well and strictly. Those who take 
property by hereditary right — children who 
take it "from their parents, are very indulgent 
to their slaves, and generally spoil them. 

Mr. FESSENDEN. I am very glad to re- 
ceive information on that subject, as I am on 
any subject, from the Senator from South 
Carolina, or any body else. But, after all, 
the question is simply this: the Senator from 
Texas does not deny, and no one, I think, will 
deny, that the g-eat object of this struggle on 
the part of the South is to obtain an equality, 
or keep an equality, of political power in this 
body. 

Mr. RUSK. I do not contend for any such 
ground. The ground of my contention is 
this : that to the Territories, the common prop- 
erty of the United States, the people of each 
of "the States have a right, unembarrassed, to 
go with their property ; and when you see 
proper here in Congress, without any express 
authority of the Constitution, to say that, 
owing to the moral condition of the southern 
States, we cannot emigrate there with our 
property, I regard that as an attempt to fasten 
on the section which I represent, and those 
who are to come after me, an odious distinc- 
tion, which the Senator is much mistaken if 
he supposes we will submit to. 

Mr. FESSENDEN. L do not suppose any- 
thing about it. Whether the Senator and his 
friends submit to it or not would not make a 
particle of difference in my action. As I said 
before, on that position the Republican party 
has planted itself, namely : that it will oppose 



from Ohio has said, not on the ground of hu- 
manity, not on the question, whether slavery 
is right or wrong in itself — with that, here, 
I do not choose to deal — but as a political 
question. 

The honorable Senator from Texas will not 
undertake again, I think, to assert, that when 
slaves are transported from any State into a 
Territory, and that Territory becomes a State 
with slave institutions, the political power of 
slavery is not thereby increased. The object 
avowed by the section to which the honorable 
Senator belongs — the object avowed by the 
Senator from South Carolina, I think upon this 
floor, certainly elsewhere, is to enable the 
slave States to procure either an equality or a 
majority in number of Senators here, in order 
that they may be able to control legislation in 
regard to that institution, as well as in regard 
to other particulars. 

Mr. BUTLER. I do not put it in that 
way. I do not think the question, whether 
one section or the other should have the ascen- 
dency, ever entered the conception of those 
who made the Constitution. I will inform the 
Senator that I have never maintained that we 
should contend for an ascendency in the slave 
States with a view to control the non-slave- 
holding States. I d'savow any such idea. I 
think, however, that f be most fortunate thing 
for both would be to have an equilibrium. 

Mr. RUSK. The Senator from Maine will 
find that [ have uot contended for any such 
thing in regard to my own State. She is en- 
titled to have three additional States formed 
within her limits, but we have not asked to 
bring them in. 

Mr. FESSESDEN. In due course of time 
I expect to see them apply for admission. 

Mr. RUSK. Will you vote for their admis- 
sion ? 

Mr. FESSENDEN. That depends on cir- 
cumstances. 

Mr. RUSK. I supposed so. 
Mr. FESSENDEN. If I be here when the 
time comes, I shall vote probably one way or i 
the other on that subject. 

Mr. RUSK. No doubt of it. 
Mr. FESSENDEN. You say our desire is 
to obtain the control of the Government, by 
means of our greater population, and of our 

necessarily greater increase of numbers. You • to the end— I may say to the bitter end, it 
say that this increase will continue. Proba-j bitter it must be— the extension of slavery 
bly so, if you give us room to expand ; but if lover free territory. That is their doctrine; 
you shut us up within the comparatively lira- ' it is mine. ' 

ited territory we now have, and you appro- Mr. RUSK. The Senator will put it in *ei 
priate all the Territorv of the United States , proper form. I do not like these phrases -JT 
as I think you would" be glad to do, for the catch popular opinion. We of the SgJT 
purpose of making slave States, I do not know have pianted ourselves on our equal/* 
where, in the process of time, we may be ; for ' under the Constitution. 



Our numbev, , 

'rights 
s °r our 



y 



12 



•weakness does not make the slightest differ- 
ence. So far as I am concerned, I shall live 
under and support this Government as long 
as it maintains my equal rights. The Con- 
stitution maintains my equal rights in the 
State where I live, and in the Territories of 
the United States. When a majority, in (as 
I believe) disregard of the obligations of the 
Constitution, shall deny me my constitutional 
rights, against that act of usurpation, I am 
prepared to stand up and resist, and I will 
not stop to inquire what the consequences 
mav be. 

Mr. FESSENDEN. The honorable Sena- 
tor from Texas is a very hrave and determined 
man, and I have no idea that he says anything 
which he does not mean, and would not carry 
out. At the same time he will permit me to 
6ay, without regard to what the South may 
do, or what individuals may do, or may 
express their design to do, in case of a cer- 
tain event, if we regard, and so long as we do 
regard, that matter to be essentia' to us and 
to our rights under the Constitu ; on of the 
United States, we shall, with equal pertina- 
city, follow it out, until there ceases to be any 
hope to accomplish the object. 

Mr. RUSK. You have the numbers. 

Mr. BROWN. If the Senator from Maine 
will allow me, 1 will ask him a question. 

Mr. FESSENDEN. I think 1 am exceed- 
ingly liberal to-day. 

Mr. BROWN. I understand the Senator 
to take the gronnd, that the Republican party 
of the North mean to oppose, and to oppose 
to the bitter end. the extension of slavery to 
any of the Territories of the United States. 

Mr. FESSENDEN. Auy free territory, I 
eaid. 

Mr. BROWN. I ask the Senator this : 
suppose the people of Kansas, uninfluenced 
hy the action of the Government — by any 
interference on the part of the southern peo- 
ple, left perfectly free to act and elect for 
themselves, shall choose to introduce slavery 
and ask for admission into the Union as a 
elave State, will he oppose their admission ? 

Mr. FESSENDEN. I will meet that ques- 
tion when it comes. I have noticed the par- 
ticular mode which Senators have here (and 
it is very acute) when gentlemen are follow- 
ing a particular line of argument, to interrupt 
them by asking what they would do in a 
eupposable case — I presume with the object of 
Producing embarrassment. 
£ 'Mr. BROWN. Not at all. 
seVjr. FESSENDEN. Now, whatever the 
amon 1 ^ -may be, I beg leave to say to the Sen- 
is, thatf m Mississippi, and all others, that I 
the slaviP "> be caught in any such way. I will 
•nth theiK i 



answer any question in reference to my line 
of argument ; but whenever they attempt to 
get me out of that line by asking what I will 
do in any supposed contingency, my only 
answer is, that I will let ycu know how I vote 
when the contingency arises. 

Mr. BAYARD. Allow me to ask a ques- 
tion in the Senator's line of argument? 
Mr. FESSENDEN. Certainly. 
Mr. BAYARD- I w ish to understand on 
what ground lie claims that it is an interfe- 
rence with the rights of the people of the 
non-slaveholding States for Congress to abstain 
from the exercise of any power in reference to 
the common territory of the Union, either 
prohibiting or authorizing slavery there ? In 
what respect does it violate the rights of any 
citizen, or of any non-slaveholding State, for 
Congress to exercise no power, either for the 
purpose of prohibition, or for the purpose of 
authorization of slavery ? On the other side, 
I suppose the prohibition infringes o the 
rights of citizens of the United States to go 
with any species of property into territory 
which belongs to the people of the whole 
Union ; it is a violation of the rights of the 
citizens of those States who happen to hold 
that particular description of property. I do 
not see where the violation is on the other side. 
Mr. FESSENDEN. If I thought that a . 
prohibition by Congress of the extension of 
slavery to the Territories was interfering with 
the constitutional right of any man in any 
section of the Union, I certainly should not be 
an advocate for that interference. The ques- 
tion, hewever, has been argued over and over 
again upon this floor, I might say argued even , 
ad nauseam, until everybody is tired of it. It 
has been argued over and over again upon 
every stump through, the whole country. We 
know the force of the argument, that this is 
only permitting the people to act for them- 
selves ; carrying out the idea of popular sov- 
ereignty ; that there is a right in the people of 
the Territories to form their own institutions 
to suit themselves, and a right in the people 
of the southern States to remove into the Ter- 
ritories, and carry their slaves with them. 
The question has been argued here too often 
not to be entirely familiar to the honorable 
Senator from Delaware, and be knows very 
well that we deny there is auy such constitu- 
tional right on the part of anybody. We deny 
that slavery can exist in the Territories unless 
by force of positive law. 

Mr. BAYARD. The honorable Senator 
did not understand my question. 
Mr. FESSENDEN. I did. 
Mr. BAYARD. I think not. I merely added 
to my inquiry my own views of the violation 



13 



of right upon the one side ; I did not ask him 
to discuss that. My question was, what 
injustice, what injury results to the people of 
the non-slaveholding States from allowing the 
people of the whole country to have a right 
to go to any territory of the United States 
with any species of property they possess ? 
In what way does it affect his own State 
injuriously ? 

Mr. FESSENDEN. . I was coming to that j 
but being a little circuitous, perhaps, in my 
logic, I had not arrived at it quite so soon as 
the honorable Senator might have expected. 
I was laying the foundation for my answer by 
saying, that we deny all those asserted rights 
with which the Senator closed his question to 
me. We deny that there is any constitutional 
right, on the part of any southern man, to go 
into a free Territory, and carry his slaves 
with him, and hold them there. We say that 
slavery can exist there only by force of posi- 
tive law. Although the contrary has become 
the settled doctrine of the Democratic party 
at the present tune, we deoy it still. We 
say, moreover — and allow me to repeat it — 
that when we prohibit you from carrying 
slaves to a Territory, vve leave you still with 
the same rights which we ourselves possess. 
No law is unequal in operation, unless it acts 
unequally upon different persons. The Sena- 
tor from Delaware can go to these Territories 
with his hands, and his heart, and his head, 
and make the most of them there, upon the 
same terms that I can go and make the most 
of the vastly inferior power, physical and in- 
tellectual, which God has giveu to me. We 
say that when we leave the South and the 
North, the slave States and the free States, 
upon that precise line, ws leave them equal, 
and we trench on no rights of theirs by that 
prohibition. 

We say, moreover, that the Constitution has 
expressly given to the Congress of the United 
States the power to make rules and regula- 
tions for the Territories, and that this author- 
ity includes the power to prohibit slavery in 
the Territories, and prevent its extension over 
them. I remember that the first time I had 
the honor of addessing the Senate, the honor- 
able Senator from Michigan [Mr. Cass] de- 
nied this position, and told me the Supreme 
Court had decided otherwise. I had so much 
respect for him that I did not dispute his 
word, though I was not aware of any such 
decision. Since that time 1 have looked into 
the subject, and certainly none such can be 
found. 

Mr. CAS3. The honorable Senator is mis- 
taken. He misunderstands what I said to 
him. The ground which he took was on the 



old question of the power of Congress to ex- 
tend general jurisdiction over the Territories, 
under that clause of the Constitution giving 
the power to regulate the public lands. I 
merely staled to the honorable Senator that 
the Supreme Court hail decided that the term 
" territory " in that clause of the Constitution 
meint land. That they did decide. 

Mr. FESSENDEN. If the Senator wilt 
refer to the printed debate of that day, he 
will find that he is in euor. He will find 
that he went as far as I now state, that is to 
say, that the Supreme Court had decided con- 
trary to the view which I was then taking, 
viz : that Congress derived all necessary power 
to legislate for the Territories under that clause 
of the Constitution. That the Senator denied, 
on the authority of the Supreme Court. 
Although I d ; d not dare, as a young member 
of this body, to dispute it then, I have since 
ascertained that he was in error on that 
point. , 

Mr. CASS. The circumstance is perfectly 
fresh in my mind. I argued the question ten 
years ago, and ten times since. I am not 
going to enter into u now. The point of the 
honorable Senator, on the occasion to which 
he alludes, turned, as I understood him, upon 
the meaning of the word "territory" — whether 
t extended further than the public lands. A 
Senator not now in his seat — I think it was 
Mr. Sumner — assured the gentleman that the 
Supreme Court made that decision. It was 
one of the Senators sitting on that side near 
him who declared that such a decision had 
been m?de. 

Mr. FESSENDEN. It was affirmed by 
the honorable Senator from California, [Mr, 
We leer.] 

Mr. CASS. I think it was also acknowl- 
edged by one of the Senators on the other 
side. 

Mr. FESSENDEN. No, sir. 

Mr. CASS. It was touching the decision 
of the Supreme Court, that the word " terri- 
tory " in this clause was equivalent to " pub- 
lic land." With respect to the other point, 
permit me to say that I did not put it. The 
main argument I produced in this body 
ago. I did not assume that the 
Court had so decided. I stated that, 
opinion of Judge Marshall, which has/ been 
alluded to during this debate, he put tfuerioht, 
of governing the Territories on thc^e or four 
different grounds. He put it on/the ground 
of sovereignty. He put it on tfbe ground 
the regulation of property. Jfle put .. 
ground of the acquisition fi{ territory 
finally, he put it on the ground of 
viz : that the power was exercisec" 



Supret 



14 



based the view which I took of the incompe- 
tency of Congress to legislate on the domestic 
concerns of the people of a Territory on a de- 
cision of the Supreme Court. 

Mr. FESSENDEN. I shall not attempt at 
this day, and on 'his occasion, to review any 
of the former speeches made by the honorable 
Senator from Michigan. If 1 misunderstood 
him upon the former occasion, my misunder- 
standing is matter of record. What he then 
said is also matter of record. If he refers to 
it, he will find that I am not out of the way, 
for I have looked at it since the occurrence 
with reference to this particular view. 1 take 
it, then, not to be disputed by him at least, 
that it is the settled doctrine of the Supreme 
Court of the United States that, under this 
clause of the Constitution, Congress has a right 
to legislate for the Territories. That right 
may be deduced besides from the necessity of 
the case. The power has been exercised over 
and over again. What we hold as a party is, 
that as this power exists in the Congress ol 
the United States, it is the duty of Congress 
bo to exercise it as to prevent the extension of 
slavery over free territory. 

1 come now to answer, so far as I can, the 
question put to me by the honorable Senator 
from Delaware. He asks how they intertere 
with us ? Sir, we are a partnership. The 
free States and the slave States are connected 
together. The people of the free States and 
of the slave States ought to have influence in 
this Confederac}' somewhat in proportion to 
their population. There is a provision in the 
Constitution which enables ttie slave States to 
exercise a power disproportioned to their 
number of free people. It is, as claimed by 
the Senator from Virginia, an element of 
political power. If it bt a fact that free and 
slave labor cannot exist together, if the two 
systems be in a degree antagouistical, it their 
interests be in a measure opposite, everything 
which has a tendency to increase the political 
power of the slave interest in this country is a 
direct encroachment on the political power of 
the free peoj>le of the free States. It may be 
constitutional — it may be legal ; but it is none 
the less an encroachment. What tends to 
Increase the one tends also to diminish the 
\ other. Consequently the effect, if beneficial 
VTolitically to you, is injurious politically to us. 
ItSjs on this position, as stated by the Senator 
fronX Ohio, that we base ourselves in some 
degTee* 

Again;, this is a political partnership, and 

the commton burdens are to be borne in com- 

■ion. We\have an interest that the Territo- 

lt of this country shall be made into great 

„•*!«. stronglStatcs, powerful and rich States, 



able to protect themselves, and aid us in pro- 
tecting the country, to increase the revenues, 
and power of defense, and power of attack, of 
this great nation. Will the honorable Sena- 
tors from the slave States pretend to say that 
slave institutions have the same effect and the 
same power in making great, and powerful, 
and strong States of the Union, members of 
the partnership, as free institutions have ? 
Will they so contradict all history as to hazard 
any such assertion ? I trust not. Look at 
the State of Virginia. It is a State that I look 
upon with great kindness ; but will the hon- 
orable Senator from Virginia, (he is not now 
m his seat.) or will any other man, contem- 
plate that State, and compare her with the 
State of Pennsylvania, which lies alongside of 
tier, and look at her present and her past. If 
we refer to revolutionary times, we shall find 
that the State of Virginia, which has a terri- 
tory almost equal to the territory of all New 
England in square miles at the present day, 
or but little short of it, had in those days a 
population about equal to that of all New 
England. She had a larger commerce and 
greater agricultural power. She was greater 
than all, stronger than all, though the institu- 
tion of slavery then existed in New England 
in fact, but in a much less degree than in Vir- 
ginia. 

What is Virginia now, compared with those 
States, in wealth, strength, and power alone? 
— and I speak only of these. Her free whits 
population, if I remember rightly, is less than 
a million ; the population of New England is 
something like two million seven hundred 
thousand or two million eight hundred thou- 
sand. What is her commerce ? I refer the 
Senator to the description given of her com- 
merce by the present Governor of Virginia — 
it has taken to itself wings and flown away. 
What is her agriculture ? Does it compare, 
rich as she is in native resources, with the 
agricultural productions of even New Eng- 
land, barren and sterile as she is described to 
be? What is she in any particular — I meaa 
as a powerful State ? What is she iu any- 
thing, except iu the patriotism, learning, and 
ability of her sons? — for there I do not pre- 
tend to question her equality; but in all else^ 
in population, in commerce, and manufac- 
tures, even in agriculture — in everything that 
tends to make a great and strong State — how 
does she comparo with New England ? What 
has done this ? I believe — we believe at th« 
North — that Virginia, with her greater natu- 
ral advantages, with her water power, which 
is unequalled, with her soil, which is unsur- 
passed, with the mines that are in her bosom 
— everything that could make a State great 



15 

and powerful— would not be what she is butjstitution exists. We have agreed that k 
S, r er! S hed StltUtl ° a * ^ ^ *° ^ H?™!* * e >™ d ! ?* to 7™ «** for one ? 

In looking at a paper which came to me 
this morning, I met with an extract, which I 
will take the liberty to read, not with any in- 
vidious feeling. I do not know but that the 
Senator from Virginia can inform me whether 
it is correct or not. It professes to be an ex- 
tract from a speech of a Mr. Marshall, who 
is described as a son of the late Chief Justice 
Marshall, delivered in the House of Delegates 
of the State of Virginia in the year 1832: 

" Slaver^ Is ruinous to the whites— retards im- 
provement— roots out industrious population— 
banishes the yeomanry of the country— deprives 
the spinner, the weaver, the smith, the shoe- 
maker, the carpenter, of employment and sup- 
port. This evil admits of no remedy— it is in- 
creasing, and will continue to increase, until the 
whole country will be inundated with one black 
wave covering its whole extent, with a few white 
taces here and there floating on the surface. The 
master has no capital but what is vested in hu- 
man flesh— the father, instead of being richer for 
his sons, is at a loss how to provide for them • 
there is no diversity of occupations, no incentives 
to enterprise. Labor of every species is disrep- 
utable, because performed mostly by slaves. Our 



< -- l —. ~~ .^.^wjr Kiy sieves. \j\ 

towns are stationary, our villages almost every 
where declining, and the general aspect of the 
country marks the curse of a wasteful, idle, reck- 
less population, who have no interest in the soil 
and care not how much it is impoverished. 

" Public improvements are neglected, and the 
entire continent does not present a region for 
which nature has done so much and art so little 
It cultivated by free labor, the soil of Virginia is 
capable of sustaining a vast population, anions 
whom labor would be honorable, and where ' the 
busy hum of men' would tell that all were happy 
and all were free." yyj 



I have the whole 



Mr. OOLLAMER. 
speech. 

Mr FESSENDEN. I should have finished 
WfcaJ I had to say long ago, if honorable Sen 



am opposed, and always have so expressed 
myself, to interfering with that question 
among you in the slave States at all, directly 
or indirectly ; for what I have no right to do 
directly I have no right to do indirectly. But 
when it comes to the question, whether an 
institution which has produced such effects 
winch is so enfeebling, necessarily, to the great 
whole of which I am a part, and of which 
my State is a part, and which has produced 
such blighting effects, shall be extended 
over new territory vast as all that which 
goes to make up the States of this Union and 
this black wave shall be left to sweep over it 
carrying with it effects so disastrous, it be-' 
comes not only my right, but my 'solemn 
duty, to stand here and protest against it and 
to go before my constituents, and before the 
world, wherever and whenever I can, and pro- 
test and act against a result which I believe 
will be attended with such enormous evils 
That is my answer to the question which is 
put to me— how our rights and our institutions 
are to be interfered with by allowing this 
Government to permit the extension of slavery 
over Territory which is now free, and which 
ought to be left free ? 

Mr. President, one word more. I do not 
look upon this question as a question ef States 
llie States, as political corporations, have no 
direct interest in the Territories. I do not 
recognize the State of Virginia, or fchi State of 
lexas, as a State, as having a particle of inter- 
est m them; nor the State of Maine, nor the 
fetate of Massachusetts, nor New York nor 
any other free State. It is a question with the 
people of the United States. One has just as 
much interest and right as another has. 
When you come here and talk to us about the 



tors had not put so many troubled™ institution tfsWy - oS^fflS 
flons to me. I answer the Senator from Del- States, and say it is a question betwee^ Xn 
aware thus: we are States, but we are a na- States and sixteen Stares 1 asl'Ts there nS 
toon : we are a people, yet a united people, institution in the fifteen States compoS tha 
l£l\VT e w g ?°r e ^ to be inL-Soath except the institution «SS t 
estmg to all. What strengthens a part of this that all which goes to make up these Lat 
great country strengthens the whole. What empires, as they are in the i oTexK 
weakens a part weakens the whole. What to say the leastf and should beln the matti 
diminishes the power of one section diminishes of power. You talk to us here a if here weJ 
the power cf the whole country, directly, ne- nothing else in the South bu shverv T rln 
cessardy, mutably. What strength^ a not put out of sight the ^lirfSe cJxSS" 

nnnn tho irl-,1 flf oil *l,o D l„„.i..u.... ■ . ■ ~ . lIlt - c enSU8 



part has the same effect upon the whole coun- 
try. I have been surprised to hear gentlemen 
from the South asks us, "Why do you have 
the impertinence to interfere with this ques- 
tion ? What is it to you ? Why not let us 
alone to manage this matter, which is a matter 
Solely of our own concern ?" So it is a matter 



- " - ----—■•" • w,* io a mauer """»■ "^ vyime people ever rem 

51 your concern in the States where this in- You say you represent them ; I 



Of all the slaveholders in the Union, proper] 
such, there are less than five hundred 
sand ; and, including their wives and 
dren, and all connected with them, the 
certainly a decided minority of the wl 
people of the slave States themsel 
these free white people ever repres 




16 



l ibR& rN 



COWGR^Sft 



remarking is, that slavery alone does not con- 
stitute all the South. There are other men 
than those who own slaves, or are interested 
in slaves ; and for their benefit, as well as 
ours, I would open these Territories to free- 
dom, and hold them consecrated to freedom 
forever. 

But for the.,fact - tbat it might seem invidi- 
ous and unkind, 1 would allude to and read 
extracts from southern writers themselves, 
showing the effect of slavery upon a very 
large portion of the white population of the 
slave (States. You know the fact as well as I 
do, and better than I do, for you have been 
eye and ear witnesses. But what I wish to 
say to you is, that when you speak upon this 
subject, and of your rights in regard to it, do 
not talk of the rights of the States, for there 
is no State that has any right whatever, as 
such, in this connection. It is a question 
affecting all the people of the free States, and 
all the people of the slave States, and as much 
the people of slave States who do not own 
slaves as of the people of those States who do 
own slaves, although we never hear a voice 
raised within these walls from that section ex- 
cept in support of the institution, and almost 
universally in favor of its extension. Sir, I 
look upon our view of this question as one 
quite as interesting to the people of the slave 
States as to those of the free States of the 
Union. I know it is a question of political 
power ; but it is not a question of pol itical 
power between fifteen slave States and six- 
teen free States. It is a question of political 
power between the half million of people who 
own slaves, and all the rest of the free peo- 
ple of the Union, amounting perhaps to 
twenty-five millions at the present day. 
There is the question ; and when Senators at- 



tempt to 
and clain 
between c 
great class 
not so. T 




j.,1 891 169 

$ <0** . leave to say it is 
.^niical power, if it comes, and 
if the Senate of the United States is to pass 
into the hands of those gentlemen, goes not 
into the hands of the great mass of free peo- 
ple inhabiting the slave States of this Union, 
but into the hands of a class, a small class — 
however respectable, however upright, bow- 
ever patriotic they may be — and I give them, 
in these particulars, all the credit that I arro- 
gate or claim for my own section of the coun- 
try. The fact stands out in bold relief, and 
cannot be denied, that when this political 
power — a power to control the legislation of 
this country by a veto, in one body at least — 
passes into the hands of the slave States, ac- 
cording to your definition, it passes into the 
hands of less than half a million of men, who 
can control the interests of all the rest of the 
free people of the Union together. 

That is the simple truth. It is what we 
contend against. As I said to the Senate be- 
fore, I have contended against it. I have 
struggled to prevent the extension of slavery 
over the free territory of this country. I have 
struggled to prevent it by endeavoring to 
prevail on the General Government to exer- 
cise its powers to keep the Territories free 
from slavery. I may fail ; we may all fail, 
but our purpose is fixed and firm. I notify 
gentlemen that no threats of a dissolution of 
the Union in case wc elect this man or that 
man — no threat of any kind which they can 
utter, will turn us, or at least will turn rne, 
from that purpose which I have announced 
heretofore, and which I announce again. 



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